by Chris Agbo
Nigeria Association for the Blind(NAB) FCT Chapter on Thursday in Abuja urged the leadership of COREN to liaise with other critical stakeholders to review of National Building Code because it was last reviewed in 2006 so it is obsolete and it didn’t take in cognizance the priority needs of Nigeria with disabilities.
This statement was made by the Chairman of the Chapter, Mr Obinna Ekujereonye during the group advocacy visit to the Registrar, COREN.
In his speech, he said that their visit to COREN is all about implementing Disability Rights Fund sponsored Project which geared towards access to public infrastructure by persons with disabilities.
According to him, access to public infrastructure is important to the entire persons with disabilities in Nigeria in the sense that it is affecting their economic activities.
“Persons with disability suffers a great deal of accessing public offices. You can see one of us who is on wheelchair found it difficult to join the meeting and that lead to change of venue and it is a practical example of why we are here for advocacy visit; In this same vein, persons with disabilities loose out in opportunities because of inaccessible places almost everywhere in our country” he stated.
Speaking further, he said that it is as a result of this that the group decided to venture into the project. He informed that the group have carried out some activities, such as accessibility audit of public infrastructures in the FCT. The survey was done for the group to have evidence based data to engage the critical stakeholders. The survey affords the group the opportunity to audit some public infrastructures such as University of Abuja, Gwagwalada, School of Nursing Gwagwalada, National Open University airport road, Idu Metro lane, Peace Mass Transit, ABC transport and God is Good Motor and some MDAs; none of them have up to 60-70% accessibility in their places. That is too bad for persons with disabilities and as a result all the facts and figures gathered and put into a booklet for reference purpose.
He called for the review of the Nigeria building code saying as regulators of the building and construction in Nigeria, they should lead the process of reviewing the building code. It was reviewed last in 2006, it is already obsolete.
“I can’t even imagine any person, most of you here that drove car in 2006 and are still driving it up till now. The phone you started using around 2002/2003, nobody can use it any longer. Certainly they have become outdated and obsolete. But we are still using a building code of 2006. In these building code we found out that from the review that the building code is inaccessible for persons with disabilities. The language used there were derogatory and the code talked about only ramps as if it is only that makes a building disability friendly” he said.
He informed that 15% of Nigerian population that is 27 to 30 million Nigerians are persons with disabilities, the number is not a push over, they should be given attention. Something should be done about the building code and all public buildings should have facilities to make it disability friendly. Any building 2 or 3 storey building should have a lift.
“Discrimination against persons with disabilities” Prohibition” Act 2018 also talked about accessibility, existing buildings should be adjusted and new buildings must conform to the provisions of the act; all these have not been happening”.
He demanded that persons with disabilities be employed in the council to meet up with the 5% employment opportunity as it is stipulated in the Nigeria disability act.
He presented to the registrar recommendations from the review of the building code as well as the accessibility audit findings with the Project T.shirt, saying that the recommendations are the changes that they want to see in the reviewed National Building code.
“We are ready to come in any place, any time you call us to come in and shed more light for good of our people because there is nothing about us without us” he concluded.
The Registrar of COREN, Joseph Odigure in his response, said that no nation progress without taking care of the weak. God never created anybody without a potential.
He appreciated the group for coming to remind them of the problem, appreciating the fact they cannot shy away from the lots of mistakes in conceptualizing infrastructure development and very importantly in regulating the development engineering infrastructures in Nigeria. It is really disheartening that the building code was last looked at in 2006.
He informed that the council have already established department known as standards a unit under engineering standards regulation and monitoring that is in charge of standards to make sure we pay more attention to development of standards and codes for our building not just building also regulating engineering activities in Nigeria.
“We have an educational system that largely doesn’t even understand what is standards and codes and what is important of these codes in national development and that is why as a body the regulatory council, we are also working intensively on converting our regulating engineering accreditation system from what we know as traditional teaching of engineering subjects to the outcome based engineering subjects, like what you just said now it borders on how do we make our engineering society friendly, how do we make the courses we are teaching at the university are society friendly” he said.
He apologized that their building is not accessible and informed that the building was bought by COREN as a residential building and converted to an office, he promised that their new permanent site must conform.
He also promised that the council will make provision for PWDs in the next employment, the advert will be extended to the group to help source PWDs who wishes to apply and once they are qualified, they will be employed.
“I want to assure you that I will look into the proposal you have brought and we will work with the corresponding agency of government particularly SON to work on the building code, infact we are reviewing the building code right now and there is a committee in SON that is trying to breakdown the entire document to make into codes. COREN is working on the regulation of those aspects right now so that we try to review those existing codes and of course ensure the safety of our engineering infrastructures” he said.
He promised to suggest to the building code reviewing committee to extend invitation to the group to make input.
